Estimation of PAR in a forest floor using a voxel model

For the analysis of native environment of plants in a forest,we need PAR data at various land cover.A shielding situation of direct PAR has especially affected a growth of plants in a forest floor.The method usinghemispherical photograph is normally used to estimate the solar radiation in a forest floor.This method calculatessky view factor from hemispherical photograph and then estimates solar radiation. However, this method has thelimitation that solar radiation can only be estimated at shooting point of the hemispherical photograph. Voxelmodel of a forest has a potential to solve the limitation of this method because it can have a shielding factor as anattribute value and can create a virtual hemispherical photograph at any points in the forest floor.The aim of thisstudy is to simulate the PAR in a forest floor using the virtual hemispherical photograph, which is created fromvoxel model of the forest.As the result,there was a correlation between the distribution of annual integrated solarradiation under the tree and the distribution of plant cover.This proposed method can expect to utilize the analysisof native environment of plants.